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The best veggie stir fry out there! This stir fry vegetables with homemade teriyaki sauce is a favorite tasty and easy vegetarian recipe.
Ready for the best veggie stir fry? Of course, that’s our humble opinion! But these stir fry vegetables are so simple and turned out so good that Alex and I are slapping the label “best” on them too. This stir fry vegetables recipe uses our homemade teriyaki sauce: it has just 4 ingredients and comes together in 5 minutes! Oh, and it’s naturally sweet using maple syrup. Using homemade teriyaki sauce makes this stir fry taste natural and delicious: instead of the over-salted and sugary teriyaki stir fries that you might be used to.
Since this is a vegetarian and vegan stir fry recipe, we’ve included one of our favorite veggie proteins: tempeh! While we don’t eat a lot of tofu, a tempeh stir fry is something we can stand behind. It’s ultra delicious and worth finding for this recipe. Though of course, you could just omit and go straight up stir fry vegetables. Keep reading for the recipe!
Related: Easy Vegan Recipes for Beginners | Best Healthy Dinner Recipes
Creating this stir fry vegetables recipe
Alex and I specialize in Mediterranean food, so we’re often making vegan and vegetarian Italian recipes. That said, sometimes we forget about how delicious stir fry vegetables are as a quick weeknight meal. Perhaps you think that you don’t need a recipe for stir fry vegetables, just throw them in a pan? That’s true too. But we’ve found in our experimenting that it’s equally as easy to make really bad stir fry vegetables without a recipe. There’s an art form to making the best stir fry vegetables that are cooked properly and seasoned well.
For our best stir fry vegetables recipe, we’ve used our homemade teriyaki sauce recipe to bring big flavor to some humble veggies. If you read our teriyaki sauce post, you’ll notice that teriyaki sauce is inspired by Japanese tradition, but it’s really an American invention. So it goes without saying that these stir fry vegetables are not an authentic Asian recipe. In our stir fry vegetables we’ve used brocolli and three colors of bell peppers, which we’ve sauteed up with some fresh ginger root and green onion. As the veggie protein, we’ve used our favorite: tempeh! If you haven’t used tempeh before, keep reading for why a tempeh stir fry is where it’s at.
Related: Easy Dinner Recipes for Busy Lives
What is tempeh?
What is tempeh? This veggie protein is starting to become more popular here in the US. Tempeh is a compressed cake of whole soybeans (and sometime grains like wheat or barley). To make tempeh, the soybeans are soaked, cooked and slightly fermented before being formed into a firm patty or block. Because tempeh is made from whole soybeans, it has a hearty texture and slightly nutty flavor that makes it an ideal meat substitute.
We prefer tempeh to tofu because it’s firmer and has a more interesting flavor. You can find tempeh at many mainstream grocery stores here in the US. We hope you give it a try in this stir fry vegetables with tempeh, or try our tasty marinated tempeh. Let us know what you think!
Our homemade teriyaki sauce
For these stir fry vegetables, we’ve seasoned them with our homemade teriyaki sauce. It takes literally 5 minutes to make, and is so worth making it at home! We’ll never buy store-bought teriyaki sauce again. It’s perfectly salted, and it also has no refined sugar by way of maple syrup.
Using the homemade sauce for these teriyaki vegetables makes them taste perfectly flavored: not too salty or too sweet! Compared to Chinese takeout teriyaki vegetables, the homemade teriyaki sauce takes these to a new level! No preservatives, MSG, and no refined sugar: just natural, delicious flavor.
Another option: try our Go-To Stir Fry Sauce! It would work with the quantity of vegetables in this recipe.
How to make stir fry vegetables with teriyaki sauce
Making this vegetable stir fry couldn’t be easier! You’ll first need to make the rice according to package instructions. Then make the homemade teriyaki sauce (we’ve linked our go-to recipe in the recipe card below). Once that’s prepped, thinly slice the tempeh, and prep the veggies — cut the broccoli into florets, dice the peppers, peel and mince the ginger, and slice the green onion.
Then, heat the sesame oil in a large skillet and cook the tempeh in a single layer until browned on both sides. Remove the tempeh from the pan and sauté the vegetables until crisp tender (you don’t want a soggy stir fry!). Once cooked, add the tempeh and homemade teriyaki sauce into the skillet and stir until everything is fully coated in the sauce.
We like to serve our veggie stir fry over rice, and a sprinkle of sesame seeds on top adds a nice crunch. The flavor is truly exceptional: we think it might be one of our best vegetarian recipes to date. (Another tasty stir fry? These Stir Fry Vegetables.)
Looking for more fast and easy dinner recipes?
In addition to our best stir fry vegetables with teriyaki, here a few more of our favorite fast and easy dinner recipes:
- Loaded Quinoa Tacos
- Cauliflower Stir Fry
- 5 Minute Romesco Gnocchi Sauce
- Mushroom Pasta with Goat Cheese
- Seared Salmon Poke Bowl
- Pasta Puttanesca Recipe
- Quick Coconut Lentil Curry
- Vegan Italian Pasta Salad
- Chickpea Couscous Bowls with Tahini Sauce
- Tropical Mango Bowls with Citrus Drizzle
- Vegan Banh Mi Sandwich
- Tex Mex Migas Recipe
- Avocado Black Bean Vegetarian Quesadilla
- Thai Curry Pizza with Naan Bread
- Broiled Salmon with Bourbon Glaze
- Quick Cuban Black Beans
- All Easy Dinner Ideas!
- Related: 10 Romantic Dinner Recipes
This recipe is…
This stir fry vegetables with teriyaki recipe is vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan, plant-based, and dairy-free.
Teriyaki Vegetable Stir Fry
The best veggie stir fry out there! This stir fry vegetables with homemade teriyaki sauce is a favorite tasty and easy vegetarian recipe.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 1x
- Category: Main Dish
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Asian Inspired
Ingredients
- 1 recipe homemade teriyaki sauce
- 1 8 ounce package tempeh
- 2 medium heads broccoli
- 3 bell peppers: red, yellow, and green
- 1 teaspoon fresh ginger root, minced
- 5 small green onions
- 1 ½ tablespoons sesame oil
- Kosher salt
- Sesame seeds, for the garnish
- Rice or (soba noodles), to serve
Instructions
- Make the rice according to How to Cook White Rice, How to Cook Brown Rice, or Instant Pot Rice.
- Make the Homemade Teriyaki Sauce.
- Thinly slice the tempeh into rectangles. Cut the broccoli into florets. Dice the peppers into large chunks. Peel and mince the ginger. Thinly slice the green onion.
- In your largest skillet, heat 1 tablespoon sesame oil over medium high heat. Add the tempeh in a single layer, sprinkle with a few pinches kosher salt, and 2 to 3 minutes per side until lightly browned. Remove from the pan.
- Add ½ tablespoon sesame oil to the same skillet. Add the broccoli and a few pinches kosher salt. Cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Add ½ cup water and continue to saute; when the water cooks out (about 1 minute), add the ginger, peppers, green onion, and another pinch of kosher salt. Saute until the vegetables are just tender, about 3 to 5 minutes.
- Turn off the heat. Add the tempeh and teriyaki sauce and stir together until everything is coated with sauce. Taste and add a pinch or two of kosher salt as desired. Garnish with sesame seeds and serve with rice.
This is my favorite go-to meatless stir fry. So tasty & full of good veggies & fermented tempeh!
Thank you Sonja and Alex for sharing such great recipe…. Not only was it fast and easy to prepare, it got higher praises from both my husband and son in the form of kisses for the cook (me 🥰). I used your teriyaki sauce as a marinate for my tofu before stir frying with mixed veggies 😋 . I will definitely be making this many, many times again. Greetings from Germany. ★★★★★
So glad you enjoyed it!
Hiya, can this be meal prepped?
Yes! Make the teriyaki sauce in advance and refrigerate until serving. You can chop the veggies and tempeh the night before and refrigerate. You can also cook the rice in advance if you like — reheat it with a splash of water on the stovetop (it dries out in the fridge).
Hi, I would love to try this recipe, it looks amazing! Sadly where I live they don’t sell maple syrup so I can’t make the teriyaki sauce, how many ml storebought teriyaki sauce do I need?
You can substitute honey for the maple syrup: is that something that’s accessible to you? Otherwise the sauce quantity is 1 cup or about 250 ml sauce.
This was soooo good!! I ended up skipping the tempeh but adding about a cup of fresh diced pineapple and fresh garlic in the sauté process. I used rice noodles instead of rice. Loved the sauce! I felt like I was eating Chinese takeout !
This is such a pretty meal and I am all about quick and easy. My daughter want to try eating less meat so I can’t wait to try this tempeh stir fry! Pining now to make soon:)
Hi there! I had such fun wandering through your web site. Your stir fry veggies with teriyaki caught my eye. We’re blessed here in Hawaii to have fresh veggies year around and we have a Farmers’ Market just a couple blocks away. I did have to go to a specialty shop for the tempeh … and have to admit I had never heard of it before. I used Maui onions instead of the green onions. The dish turned out really yummy, served over rice as you recommended. It was enjoyed by everyone. I’ll be back to try some of your other recipes. Thanks for sharing!!
I assume the nutritional values do not include the rice.
Thanks for the comment! I updated the nutrition for 3/4 cups of rice per serving.